WING CHUN WEDNESDAY: WING CHUN IS VERY CLEVER, BUT ARE WE?

One of the central IDEAS in Wing Chun is economy of movement, and this extends to the patterns we practice

This is a bit of a wrap up covering the last few posts on what I believe is a misunderstanding of theY.C.K.Y.M. and the negative snowball effect that comes from it.

Many of the training methods in Wing Chun are really clever, but if we are not equal to it then we wander off in the wrong direction, begin focusing on the wrong aspect, get the wrong IDEA.

The vast majority of Wing Chun training is defensive, Wing Chun is at its heart a counter attacking self defence system and not a fighting system, from the outset we are told that Wing Chun does not defend with both arms, because we choose tosimultaneously defend and attack.

Chi Sau is us practicing defensive postures with both arms at the same time, Chum Kiu is us moving both defence structures at the same time, this contradicts never using both arms for defence, if we understand why we do it this way it is not a problem at all, but if we do not understand why, if we allow Chi Sau and Chum Kiu to formpatterns of their own choosing it is a major problem, a problem that is clearly visible when Wing Chun people try to fight other styles.

Q. Why do we engage in so much two armed defensive training if we never intend to use Wing Chun in this way?

A. Economy of movement.

One of the central IDEAS in Wing Chun is economy of movement, and this extends to the patterns we practice, we are deliberately doing two very different, unrelated defensive actions simultaneously, this allows us to teach each side of our body the same skill set, which allows us to not be trapped by having only a single orientation to a problem, to maximise our training time by working on two separate actions at the same time, to get more bang for our buck and generally improves overall dexterity, a wonderful skill in a violent situation but once physical training is over and we begin contemplating our training it is imperative that we separate the right channel from the left channel and study them in isolation.

If we spend the time to really think about centreline theory and its widerimplications it becomes spectacularly clear that Wing Chun is a one sided defence that attacks with the other side, our two arms work towards different goals along side each other and not as one, when needed this thinking allows us to use an arm and a leg as opposed to two arms, we are a left side and a right side { or upper body / lower body if using a leg} with different objectives to attain, if we can accept this why would we think our legs would work together as one in the Y.C.K.Y.M?

This thinking is the strange man in the grey raincoat offering us sweets and asking us to follow him.

Each leg of the Y.C.K.Y.M. is the support for that side of the body only and not a joint support for the whole body, everything that follows on from this position needs serious and careful consideration, if we can approach this with an open mind we will soon see that there is no such thing as a Wing Chun guard, there is no single triangle or ball, thinking that there is a centreline between ourselves and a partner / opponent is misunderstanding the idea, misunderstanding the thinking, the Wing Chun punch does not go hey diddle diddle straight down the middle, it comes out from the shoulder, even if we want it to go to a point directly in front of our sternum it still comes from the shoulder.

We all have a responsibility to ourselves to make our understanding of the concepts personal, no one is trying to reinvent the wheel, but we must follow our own drum.